Anti-nuclear activists dispute reactor safety during quake, tsunami

SAN ONOFRE -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the San
Onofre nuclear power plant could survive a tsunami, but local
anti-nuclear activists say they are not so sure.

"This is one of the natural disasters the plant is designed to
be able to withstand," Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the federal
commission, said Wednesday.

The plant has a safety assessment manual that predicts what
would happen if a tsunami struck. However, Dricks declined to
provide the section of the assessment because it contains "very
specific information" on San Onofre's engineering.

"After the 9/11 attacks, we took it out of the public document
reading room," Dricks said, because such information could be used
by terrorists.

However, he agreed to share some information from the plant's
safety assessment.

"The highest predicted wave from a tsunami would be 6.2 feet,"
Dricks said, adding that the ensuing wave would not be big enough
to top the plant's 30-foot seawall.

Patricia Borchmann, an Escondido resident and longtime
anti-nuclear activist, said she simply does not believe that the
sea wall would adequately shield the plant from a tsunami.

"I don't think a 30-foot wall designed in the '70s is anywhere
near realistic to protect San Onofre," she said.

Dricks said the calculation is based on sound science. He said
the prediction calls for an underwater earthquake measuring 7.0 on
the Richter scale lasting for 80 seconds and occurring along the
Newport-Inglewood-Rose Canyon underwater fault line five miles
offshore. The prediction is based on studies of the closest known
active faults and their potential strength.

"At high tide, the highest it would be is 15 feet, and that's
not enough to get over the wall," Dricks said.

By comparison, the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which
generated waves up to 40 feet tall and killed more than 76,000
people, was caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

Dricks said he would be equally unconcerned by a tsunami as
large as the recent one in the Indian Ocean. He said that waves
tall enough to top the plant's seawall would not damage the plant's
twin reactors.

"The containment buildings are air- and water-tight," Dricks
said. "We don't consider it a possibility."

But some people contend other structures at the plant, such as
the concrete "dry cask" containers where highly radioactive spent
nuclear fuel is stored, are susceptible to a tsunami.

Borchmann said she is concerned that the casks could be breached
by a tsunami.

"The dry casks were not designed to withstand a tsunami," she
said.

Both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the plant's owner,
Southern California Edison, have long insisted that the casks are
safe from natural disasters.

Borchmann also questioned the science that determined just how
large of an underwater earthquake could occur near San Onofre. She
noted that the plant's safety assessment was performed when its two
operating reactors were built in the 1970s.

Russell Hoffman, a Carlsbad computer programmer and outspoken
San Onofre critic, fired off a lengthy e-mail Wednesday to local
and national media organizations stating that the plant "could not
have withstood Sunday's worst."